IHOP coming to Charlotte's Capstone Commons

An IHOP restaurant is coming to the Capstone Commons retail development in south Charlotte.

The pancake restaurant will occupy about 4,100 square feet in a new 7,500-square-foot building on 1.9 acres at the intersection of U.S. Highway 521 and Old Lancaster Highway, south of Ballantyne.

The restaurant operator is CFRA, a limited liability company based in Concord that runs IHOP restaurants in partnership with Prometheus, a private-equity firm in Atlanta that invests in nationally franchised restaurant businesses.

John Rudolph, the developer of Capstone, expects to break ground on the building in March, with IHOP planning an opening in the fall.

Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont recently opened a 12,000-square-foot store and donation center fronting U.S. 521 on an adjacent parcel at Capstone. The store was developed by Piedmont Cos. Inc. of Lincolnton, which bought the land last year. Piedmont develops retail stores and support facilities for Goodwill in multiple markets.

Rudolph plans two more 6,000-square-foot retail buildings, with the next to be situated between the Goodwill store and the IHOP building. Another section of the site along Old Lancaster Highway could be used for an office development or for a day-care center, he says.

Henry Breaux of The Providence Group represented Rudolph, who owns the land through a limited liability company called Mecklenburg Land Development. Melissa McDonald of The Providence Group represented IHOP.

Stephen Overcash of Overcash Demmitt Architects is designing the project, and civil engineering will be handled by Michael Newman of Ayer Design Group in Rock Hill A general contractor has not been selected.

McAllister group joins Bradley

A group of former employees from McAllister Commercial Construction has joined Bradley Construction.

Leading the group are Kris Kellogg and Ruben Torres, formerly a senior vice president and vice president, respectively, with McAllister. The two struck an agreement with Doug Bradley, who heads Bradley Construction, allowing them to earn an ownership stake in the company over four years.

McAllister ceased its operations at the end of last year. Kellogg says his group will continue to focus on interior upfit work in the retail and office sectors, but the firm will pursue ground-up development projects as well.

“We see ground-up slowly starting to come back,” he says. He notes Bradley Construction’s bonding capacity of approximately $10 million will enable the firm to pursue two to three small ground-up projects at a time.

Kellogg says the owners of McAllister, Greg and Shawn McAllister, graciously allowed the group to take valuable account information with them. With “the ability to take some of those processes and procedures, it’s a lot easier than starting from scratch,” he says.